Central High: Buyer Needed to Save Historic St. Louis School Before It's Too Late

Central High School has seen better days in its 100-year-old history. Boarded up since 2004, the building at the corner of North Garrison and Natural Bridge avenues now shows the signs of almost a decade of abandonment. While many of the vacant schools in the St. Louis Public School District have fallen victim to scavengers, Central High seems to have suffered far more than others with vandals destroying or walking off with its exterior stonework and copper.

One can only wonder how much damage vandals have committed inside the shuttered building. Meanwhile, neighbors and those with a connection to the school can only watch the building's slow-motion destruction.

"It was -- and still is -- a fine building, so on a practical level I'm disheartened that it isn't being put to some use," says Kara Clark, a graphic-design professor who attended the school back in the 1990s.

It wasn't always like this. At one time the St. Louis public schools were the envy of educators across the nation, thanks to its grand buildings designed by architects William B. Ittner and Rockwell M. Milligan. Drawing inspiration from the great private educational institutions of Great Britain, Ittner and Milligan created veritable castles of learning over several decades, including Central High School.

Photo courtesy of Missouri History Society

Central High School in its heyday.

Originally named Yeatman High School, the building was to fill the need for additional classrooms in the rapidly expanding city of St. Louis. By 1900 the city's population was nearing 600,000, and yet it had only one public high school, the former Central High School on Grand Boulevard. The school district turned to Ittner for two new high schools: Yeatman and McKinley High School on the south side. McKinley opened in 1902, Yeatman opened in 1904. Three years later, Yeatman added two new wings to accommodate its ever-growing student body. In 1927 a tornado destroyed Central High School, bringing even more students to Yeatman, which changed its name to Central High School. The building last housed the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School, which moved out in 2004.

St. Louis Public Schools has suffered declining enrollment since it peaked in 1967 at more than 100,000 students. One by one, the district has closed its buildings to keep in line with its shrinking student body and to save on maintenance and other costs. Every so many years parents hold their breath, hoping their child's school will survive the next round of closings. Currently, St. Louis owns several dozen empty schools, in varying degrees of repair.